


speak now

by emmamay



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, M/M, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak, Songfic, Supportive Losers Club (IT), fluff with only a little angst, richie stops eddie and myra’s wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 05:56:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,672
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27718511
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emmamay/pseuds/emmamay
Summary: In all fairness to himself, hehasmade it quite the stretch. His head’s all rustle and bustle and he’s been shook and shoggled for years on end. He knows how the termcrushgot its unfortunately apt name. And he’s been teaming, teetering on the edge of the ledge hovering over spouse-spite and adoring-admission with clenched fists and an ungodly abundance of willpower for months. He hasn’t cracked till now.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 5
Kudos: 69





	speak now

It’s like skid slide tripping, dripping wet, through a puddle of ice and mush, in a muddle of crisis-fuelled Winter blush. Like missing your train by a split second, doors slap shut smack in your face. Like a rainstorm in June, or one dead flower amongst a full bloom. 

It’s all the wrung-out, rotten, worst cursed times of Richie’s life, greeting one another by the stained glass door, in mutual understanding that this will be something absolutely not to be missed. 

Eddie’s at an alter, and Richie’s merely watching on. 

She’s in a white dress. Looks like a lacy loofah, or a puffed up pastry. Richie’s gums twist turn through the churn in his tummy, like eating a boiled lemon sweet, hard and sour and too tough to chew. The kind that sit out and collect dust in cracked bowls atop dusty paper doilies. The kind that you’re not supposed to eat. _Why would anybody ever want to eat them?_

This _is_ the prettiest he’s seen her, and she _does_ look as though she’s _attempting_ a smile, but it’s difficult to tell. Their run-ins are typically weighty yet hasty. 

Richie, in his steady, continually proved personal and private belief that both women are witches, reasonably assumes that one late Sonia Kaspbrak came to Myra in her dreams one night, many full moons ago, upon the upkeep of the Kaspbrak Home Tozier Prohibition. 

Alas, Richie has only stepped trembling trampling foot in she and Eddie’s apartment a heady handful of times. With Myra’s wrath rage thunder blocking thresholds and her wrist wrung rapt ‘round Eddie’s leash. 

Richie resents her for a mournful multitude of reasons. Levels of ferociousness differ depending on his own self-pity on given days, for some bullet-points technically have nothing to do with who Myra is, soulfully dolefully, as a person, and just who Richie is, and what he can’t help feel. For Eddie. 

Top of the leaderboard every time though, _you betcha_ , is her horrific mirror facing hell to Sonia. 

When Richie was little, he truly believed that that woman would boil him in a cauldron. The minute he fell under Myra’s steel stinging stone gaze, his skin pricked with the same burning bubbles. 

Those women are two birds of a crow’s feather. 

Mean and undermining and manipulative and everything Eddie is not and does not deserve and never has and never will. 

Before she passed, Sonia, paper doll puppet strings in hand as ever, orchestrated the entire engagement. Richie knows, consumed by confusing grief and unidentified relief, that Eddie has followed through because that is simply what he believes he has to do, in the clammy conceited palms of his own Mother. That and the prospect of _not_ being haunted for the rest of his life — numb to the sullen screams that that is exactly what he is walking into. 

Eddie is the smartest person Richie knows. He’s quick, he’s clever, chipper and dapper, a spitfire whippersnapper. His idiomatic internal compass is impeccable. He should know exactly where to go. But he’s so, so lost right now.

Bill is stood behind him. On a step, so he’s a touch tad taller than Eddie. He is Eddie’s Best Man. Richie declined the offer on account of the fact that he is _a ticking time-bomb, Eds! Get me up there in front of everyone and it would only be a matter of time before I went and screwed everything up!_

_Tick. Tick. Tick._

Big Bill looks positively pained, locks slit slanted eyes with Mike, sat in the second row, for a moment of silent despair. And the bridesmaids seem brain-deadly bored. Or at least from Richie’s view point, from behind a curtain in the back that strangely resembles their hideous frilly floral frocks. 

He was technically uninvited. But honestly, unofficially. Just because the bride would rather this ceremony were his funeral doesn’t _have_ to mean he is _completely_ unwelcome.

He hides out back nonetheless, if only to assure his slippery scatter to the bar at the reception before the preacher can even utter _‘you may now kiss the bride.’_

Or perhaps ‘speak now or forever hold your peace,’ which, evidently, Richie should have considered before now, as the man _does_ say this, and Richie’s hands shake and spine shivers, legs quake and lips quiver. 

In all fairness to himself, he _has_ made it quite the stretch. His head’s all rustle and bustle and he’s been shook and shoggled for years on end. He knows how the term _crush_ got its unfortunately apt name. And he’s been teaming, teetering on the edge of the ledge hovering over spouse-spite and adoring-admission with clenched fists and an ungodly abundance of willpower for months. He hasn’t cracked till now. 

He’s just a human being. And he just wants what’s best for that of another. 

For the one he loves. 

Richie shoots up before his conscious kicks in. Arms melty and melodramatically swung flung across his hung-back head in nervy-splendour. His eyes, smothered by his forearms, are screw squeezed shut. “ _Eddie, don’t do it!_ ” He clamours. 

Bev swiftly rises from the pews, eyes wondrously wide, wavering between incredulity and relief, the windows tinting them in technicolour. Fairytale saucers. Like she’s fallen down a rabbit hole. 

Richie feels like he’s spinning round on carnival waltzers. The world vast and putridly polychromatic. Like he’s gonna puke any second. 

Ben is tugging tiny and tinny on Beverly’s billowy blue Summer shawl, gnawing on his bottom lip. He soared up with her, hot on her heels as ever, his gaze flitting fast in a hurried flurry between Eddie and Myra and Rich. 

Richie is pointedly _not_ looking to the alter. 

He can make out Myra rottenly reverberating in his peripheral, but isn’t quite sure how much of her vibrations come down to that of her rage or just Richie’s trembling tremor of a state. 

Mike’s hands are locked in a jarring grip on the back of his seat, torso swivelled fully to face Richie, legs clearly not quite rested there. Like his immediate instinct had him bolting upward, but he caught himself halfway. Better control than Richie, anyway. 

Beside him, Patty is just watching Stan, fingers folded around his shirt collar, nail-beds and knuckles rested against the skin of his neck. 

His mouth and gaze are straight and steadfast. He nods at Richie twice, slow and sure. 

“I know how you look when you’re happy.” Rich sighs out one gut wrench of a breath and gulps through the petrified pants that follow. 

Patty turns to watch him and smiles her lavender linen lined, soft supporting, unyielding way. 

“Like—like the sun told you a secret.” Richie stammers, eyes enamoured with his shoelaces. “Like everyday feels like Christmas Eve.” He wrings his hands together and yanks on the sockets of the jiggly joints. “Like—“

The room is hushed in solemn solitude. Many look deeply horrified, some bemused, others in unabashed, amazed awe. 

Eddie looks awaiting, biding and calm. 

It most terrifyingly terrorises Richie, but settles something warm and well-worn in his soul. Something known. Something of an always. “Like how you look when I make you laugh.”

Eddie’s mouth twitches. 

“You’re not happy.” Richie shakes his head on a torn tilt, sullenly slow. “You’re not, Eds.” He fears it sounds as though he is pleading, so solidifies himself, “I know you’re not.” 

Eddie’s got these _big_ beautiful brown eyes that make your insides smoosh like a s’more. Richie’s heart knows all his nooks and crannies and niggly nifty nuances. Eds blinks all buggy and it’s completely colossal. Calamitous to Richie’s heart. He’s on the blip brink of tears. 

Rich’s fists flex open and closed involuntarily at the lack of having Eddie close, to hold and muddle up in mollification. “She doesn’t know you like I do.”

Myra swiftly cuts in front of Eds, witchy finger wrangled into an albeit warranted accusatory pokey point at Richie. “How _dare_ you?!”

“Why’s Eddie’s favourite colour purple? Why is his Grandpa his hero?” Richie’s lips contort in convulsion, nostrils funnily flaring in disgraced upset. “What’s his favourite shirt to wear to work? And his favourite for weekends?” His hands open up wide by his sides, denunciatory in return. 

Alarmed and in aglow aghast, Myra retracts, retreating in simmering indignation. Eddie shuffles back out in front of her. Her ferocity frenzies in vast vehemence, disbelieving gaze boring through his suddenly chalky cheek. 

“His Dad’s most personally esteemed handkerchief. Grandpa’s perpetual kindness and warmth. Blue and green checkered. Trick question: weekends are for polos.” Richie rhymes off as though he had practised. He need not have. He’s effortlessly well versed. Knowing Eddie is his second easiest trade to hand, only after loving him. “And those are just short answers. To a _mere handful_ of queries on the constantly unravelling enigma that is Eddie Kaspbrak.”

“Did you know that he is _hilarious?_ ” He’s building budding courage now. Grins beside his unsettled self. “So quick with quips, so witty in his rivalling endeavours undertaken with such ease. Gives me a run for my money on the daily. Funniest guy I know.”

Bev is laughing quietly in bewilderment, still stood up straight, hand on her heart, head shaking small, lips parted little. 

“Or that he is so _wildly_ opinionated. And sure, sometimes he drives me crazy with it. He can be so stubborn in his own will that there is absolutely no budging him. But it just stands stead for his insane innate loyalty. He would drop everything, every time, to save my ass. To stick up for me. I guess—I don’t know if that’s all over. This, uh, this right here might be my last straw, but—no matter what I’ve dragged him into, he’s fought to get _me_ back out, safe and sound. Every time.”

Richie hopes this is his return of the favour. 

“His kindness knows no bounds. He’s got this tight, tough facade, after years of oppression from people like _you_ , but he’s so caring. He loves so hard.” 

Bill is snuffly snuffling into a tissue behind Eddie, profusely, passionately nodding along to every word of Richie’s.

“He puts _everybody_ before himself, invariably. Because his soul is so selfless, and his heart is made of pure gold.”

The warm look Ben is giving him conveys that of the grounding feeling of a strong steady, hearty heady handhold. An _I’m right here._ A _you can do this. You’ve_ got _to do this._

“But I can’t let him do that. Not today.” Richie’s hazy head shakes a fuzzy flurry toward the floor then nods upward; sure of it, sure of himself. 

“And I—oh _gosh_ , gosh, I can’t believe I’m doing this. I am so sorry. For ruining this.” Deters a tad at the agape agog dismayed terror crashed and splashed all over Myra’s face, as his congenital ample empathy sets his stomach swirling. He’s not exactly apologising to anybody in particular. Certainly Eddie, begrudgingly Myra, the Losers, the other guests, definitely himself. “But I— I can’t let him—Eddie, I _can’t_ let you do this.” He trudges on nonetheless. 

Eddie’s bushy brown brows are upturned in bubbling bewilderment, moony eyes now leaking star-shine tears. 

Richie’s got odd spotty dotted socks on and caustically clenched fists and his tie is loose and he’s desperate. “Eddie, I love you. I don’t want you to do this.” 

He’s messy and he’s emotional and he hogs the duvet cover and is incapable of maintaining the mental beginners manual of trouser-folding and regularly forgets to replace the toilet paper when he finishes the roll, but he loves Eddie with every piece of himself. “I don’t want you to hurt anymore.” 

Eddie’s sweet face twists and curves in a flood of overarching, overwhelming _feeling_. Round his mouth, top teeth sunk silky into his bottom lip. His cheeks, apple round and cloud cotton soft and streaming sparkles from his eyes. Eyes that tell the whole story. 

Stanley is crying too. Something Richie believes not to have seen since early childhood. Something that pushes him to fully unfold. 

“I want your sunshine secret smile, and your impending-Christmas type joy. And I want that for me, if you’ll have me. But mostly, _really honestly_ , I just want that for you.” 

Eddie crumples into a teeny whimper whisper, “I know, Rich.” With a flurry of nods and puppy tilt of the head. Richie doesn’t hear it but sees it. Feels it.

He’s loyal, he’s fussy, he’s kind and willing, and beautiful and bold. He’s so, _so_ brave. He turns on his heel and sniffle subsides his tears and faces the light and takes a deep breath into a goodbye. “I’m sorry, Myra. I can’t.” 

She seems to have surpassed seething steam and stands stalk still in affronted befuddlement.

“You’re no good for me.” Eddie’s shoulders shimmy a shrug, resolutely. “And I shouldn’t have let it get to this. I made a mistake. Almost the worst one of my life.” His head dances in a daze on the line of a nod and shake, eyes skimming the simmering pews wary and wondrously. 

“I wish you all the best.” He salutes back once to her, descending the steps, a suddenly jolly little jog in his dapper dress shoes. A spring in his step for the first time in forever. Richie’s soul spirals. 

“ _Eddie!?_ You cannot be serious, Eddie.” Myra squawks silly, funny filly in her dress. _“Him!?_ You’re kidding!” She snap cracks toward Richie, eyes rampant in imminent rampage. “Get back here _right now._ ” 

“No.”

“ _What_ did you just say to me?”

“ _No._ ” Eddie grins. Small and stirring and _proud of himself_. “Goodbye, Myra.”

Bill’s hands are fluttering all over his face, swiping and wiping at weeping tears, smiling dizzy dazzled and dumbfounded. His eyes are on Mike, reeling from his place beside Patty, thunder- _and_ -wonderstruck, beside Stan, proud as punch. He’s swift smoothing a palm over his chin and grin in awed delight, hand tight right ‘round Pat’s back. 

Ben’s tear-trodden gaze finds Bill’s through their mutual blurry blear, and he raises a celebratory fist. Shudders through his spine and shakes it all around in glee and gaiety and relief. 

Bev whoops and hollers in mushy, gushy merriment. Laughs her flouncy fiery head off in buoyancy and pushes the first domino into a half-crowd-full of cheers. Richie thinks he even spies some of the bridesmaids join in. 

He can’t be sure though, his vision is unbearably impaired at the best of times. Cloudy blear and hazy glare. Sometimes it’s all just fear; self-inflicted obscurity. But there’s always one shining light.

Shooting down the isle in all his star-studded splendour. There are flower petals by his feet and kicking up a storm round his tapping toes. Kissing his shins and making him float.

“ _Richie,_ ” He spit splutters a sonorous sigh in unbridled urgency. 

“Oh my gosh. Eds, listen. I meant what I said. I don’t expect anything from y—“

The dissipated clamour of claps re-heightens in a flooding flash. Richie doesn’t need to be able to see. 

Kissing Eddie, _Eddie_ kissing _him_ , it’s the movie moment, the brooding bridge of a love song. Where the clarity kicks in. Where the fog clears.

His fists clutch a cluster of Rich’s shirt and tie and everything his clammy palms can muster and Richie’s whole hands smother Eddie’s face and forehead and jaw. 

“ _Eddie._ Eddie, Eddie,” Richie whimpers wavy, holding his head sound still, their noses still nudging, breaths a whisper of wonder between one another. 

“Richie,” Eds‘ fidgety fingers fall flush against his face, soothing and smoothing his catty curls back and blanketing his ruddy wrung cheeks. 

It’s like tongue-tied flying, soaring sky-high through the clouds and into the sun. Like switching the radio on to your very favourite song. Like a clear sky in December, or a heart set alight in embers. 

It’s all the dashing, darling, dream-dwelled, super swell times of Richie’s life, greeting one another by the stained glass door, in mutual binding relief that _this is it_. This is what they’ve been waiting for. 

**Author's Note:**

> this fic is based on taylor swift’s ‘speak now’, from the GODLY album of the same name. see also ‘better than revenge’ for richie’s inevitable, ultimate hairbrush-karaoke-in-bedroom-mirror song. 
> 
> i hope you enjoyed! if you’d like to leave me a little comment with your thoughts i would very much love that. <3 thank you very much for reading xxx


End file.
